Fiasco in Rokar

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Fiasco in Rokar
GM: William Dymock
Session: Spring 802 wk
Level: Medium-High?

Party

Dramus (GM Info), A Fae Prince and Necromancer played by Mandos

1. Vychan Carnivorous Earthmage Giant and Confirmed Crossdresser - Sean English
2. Isil_Eth - Elven Princess and Scary Mindmage - Ian Wood
3. Drovar Vegetarian EarthMage Were-Salmon - Paul Kilby
4. Hoo wannabe Leprechaun Illusionist Dogrider - Michael Woodhams
5. Haann_Uberreich only remotely normal one left - Ben Taberner
6. Gerrade an Illusionist of some sort - Struan Judd

Employer

Seir

Mission

Someone chased the money changers out of the temple. Specifically his temple where they are sorely needed. We shall fix this.

Pay

Loose change.

1st Thaw

Apparently the new arrivals to the balmy lizard infested town of Rokar, depsite being rescued and rehoused by the acts of Guild and under the protection of Seir, have totally failed to worship the right Demon and brought their own 8 foot tall Bull-headed ( literally ) character called Urgolash. Naturally we must teach them respect.

We speak to the representitive of the local temple of Seir and he gives lots of confusing info from the easily-distracted one himself. We has a light lunch and travel through the mystic cupboards of Dramus' house to the city.

We arrive in the to find it has been fouly 'DECORATED. Actually it was just a bit rustic for my taste, but Urgolash's guys have moved in and moved our man out, hence the demonic tiswoz. We ( Dramus ) demand where the big guy is, but get told by the new head priest "I don't know, he keeps his own hours". Religeon ain't what it used to be.

Speaking of which, Dramus then summons the Flashy One outside to get the real lowdown. We naturally don't get a lot done and it are distracted by the Giant turning into a pretty adventuress call Debra and a runner bringing us a scroll inviting Gerrade to meet with Commander Mara, despite us only being in town for about 10 minutes.

On the way there I recognise an unfamiliar and un-Alusian face of a merchant Guard from one of my trips off-plane. Every plane I went was infested with loonies, so this sets me on edge for the rest of the day. I get Gerrade to remember what his face looks like to show the others.

Drivar and I accompany Gerrade to upper-crust establishment ( I have to get Disguised to enter, I wonder if Illusionists practise really just so they don't have bothering giving their jerkin a clean every week ) and he is escourted up to the apartments. Me and Drovar drink for what seems like an afternoon and Gerrade still hasn't come back. On a quick break in the alley I sneak a peek at the future and see myself talking to the matire'd again. Giving him up for lost, we head back to our Inn.

( Gerrade chats frankly with Lady from the Luna Empire. Admits we are working for Seir. She gallantly lets him know that they are making this part of the Luna Empire Co-Prosperity Sphere. Strangely, this takes all night. Curiously protracted eastern customs I expect. )

Dramus is summoned by urchin to talk to Cedric, the dispossesed High Preist of Seir, and they chat about the local deo-political situation. Apparently the place has been lousy with black pajama clad assasins and Aim has also reportedly been lurking around. That about makes my day. Dramus cheers himself up by seducing the transformed Giant.

On the way back into Hoo is managing to have a conversation with a young woman, and he notices her recognise me as I re-enter the inn. When I put this together with ninja/demon/offplane details it makes me feel real special. Who the hell have I annoyed lately?

2nd Thaw

Gerrade returns and we spend the morning swapping the information we've gathered. Already there is too much of it too be a good thing. Especially regarding the Giant and the Elf.

We whip up some questions for Vykan to put to his earth spirits, to help destract him from last nights.. ..encounter. We find out the following.

Urgolash is not within the city, but is in 100 miles of it and he sleeps upon the Earth, requires human sustainance, and we aready have the means to destroy him. Urgolash ascended due an entity rather than an item or artifact. He can also summons minions and may be attracted by means of a ritual or sacrifice.

Also Hoo's friend from the bar isn't hostile to us.

Seir's Imp (disguise as an urchin ) turns up and helps us find the merchants party in which I recognised the guard from offplane. We speak to them a factor house and pretending to be a group of merchants and heavies they show as a very cool toy, that reeks of weirdness.

A Tusselvoid is a small dark-sphere-like back marble which can have rope of a vast quantity stored within and remains stationary in the air until moved by a sentient. Apparently this is best pulley ever, and they sellling them at an extremely cheerful price.

Dramus abandons subtlety and askes them point blank where they are from, and they blithly say they are engineers from the Calamar world of Halcious. They are quite hapy to deal with us, despite some bad blood between the Guild and Prince ( now Emporer ) Villathrana.

They also cheerfully tell us about the expansion of the Luna Empire and the fact that there is a boatload of Gabrialite's in the Harbour. I am now of the opinion people are now just making stuff up in an attempt to worry us to death.

The number of potentially ( inevitabley? ) conflicting parties is apparently now 8 being;

Followers of Seir

Followers of Urgolash

Urgolash himself

The Lunans

The Gabrialites

The Calamar Representitives

Aim + Cultists?

Us

This place won't last a week.

We headed back the ex-Temple of Seir to talk to Urgolash's head preist some more, and find him refreshingly co-operative in giving details about his dieties habits.

We discover he is destined to fight Dukaran, another giant hairy guy, in mighty test of strength, allegedely violent enough to shake mountains. Always in for a bit of mountain shaking, he disguise the giant to be a rough likeless of the temples tapestries, to attract the attention of the Man-God.

Dramus decided that the plan cannot succeed without some woodcutters, so he abuse some locals until they reveal that the woodcutters live outside the city ( near the wood ) and enter ontrading days through the "Wood Gate".

We troop out to look for them and some one throws a rock at Vykan from about 700 feet away. Astonished that the plan is working with out the woodcutters we charge into the fray, towards a large man in eastern-looking armour waving a large curved blade and looking to pitch more sheep-sized boulders at us.

He proves to be even more talented as he summon lizard men to slow us down, and we are having a jolly old time rescuing Dramus from under a knot of them when he gets bored and walk off.

We head back the temple where the preist reveal that was probably Urgolash's man form and reccomends the Goddess Anana would put him in better mood. Vykan is rather happier with the huge boulders being pitched at him. We retire to mend Dramus' injured arm and rest awhile.

3rd Thaw

Hoo manages to summon a cockatrice as a riding mount and nearly gets fried. It's swiftly mashed to death by Vykan and Dramus, who desperately wants to stuff and mount the remains to make part of a Golem. A digusting enterprise it sounds too.

As we are heading up to the spot where we last lost sight of Urgolash, Dramus reveals the cunning plan involving the wood cutters. By finding out which tree's were going to be cut down by them, we could identify which trees could be used without offending the tree-friendly Earth mages. Sadly introducing Vykan to the wood cuuters, who had apparently been dreading his arrival for generations, was a bit fraught and the idea of wood cutters existing, much less with his blessing, seemed to make him a bit unhappy.

A little bit of circular logic from Dramus get a conversation started, but it quickly degenerates into a baby-eating accusation match.

We had off to track Urgolash, but an uneasy feeling and a hungrily stalking mind at the edge of my ESP disrupt our skilled Rangers. Dramus unleashes a gout of corrupted ooze and drives the mind away. It could have been the shock and outage of the Earth mages however. And then, something terrible happens....

An arrow thunks into a tree near Vykan that is so laden with poison sap that the bark starts smoking. This causes general alarm and Vykan mows off in the direction the arrow came from. His leg is snagged by a trap apparently designed for taking the heads off of normal people, and it is dripping with the venom to boot. The nasty intention I sensed keeps appearing and disappearing, so I have no doubt that it's responsible, but can't get a fix on it.

We decide that it is far too much in it's element and we are out of ours and beat a retreat back to the city. Repairing back to the Lizards Head, Hoo looks out for his bit of fluff and Vykan and Dramus provide a public spectacle by engaging in a drinking competition, and the more decorous of us quiz the locals about the comings and goings in town. What parts that bit of Vykan wind up under the table, and Dramus celebrates by drinking more of the nasty date brandy which appears to be the tipple bad enough to be sold exclusively to rich foreigners.

4th Thaw

Neither of the contestants have hangovers for more than a few seconds the next morning, but the publican seems please to rid of such a huge quantity of camel drench and been paid good money for it. A urchin of non-demonic aspect appears and explains that a man would like to talk with us, It turns out to a pale thin-faced man from the Western Kingdoms who takes us to a basement of a run-down hovel and introduces us to the remains of the local Cult of Aim. We aren't impressed. They wish to do some sort of deal with us, and after a quick consult with the boss, we decide that it's okay provided that no-one ends up owing Aim anything.

After another talk they suggest that the towns problems would all be solved by some noisy sacrifice involving bonfires and generally burning things, They also reveal that there is a unaligned succubus in the town called "Ilius" and blithely hand over her true name.

Hoo & Vykan tour the town looking for sordid amusement and Drovar and myself cautiously investigate some of the prettier faces for the aura of Succubi. We seem to have the better luck when we spot a high priced call-girl called Serene with all the distinguishing features of pretty, up-market nether fiend. Dramus spends quieter time with his books of lore and identify a handful of nether-do'ells that might be masquerading as this dim Man-God, Urgolash.

These are, by Rank:

Gremory

Duke of Songs

Sitri

The Beautiful Prince

Renove

The Beautiful Earl

Andrealphus

The Beautiful Marquis

Shaz

The Thieving Marquis

Illusionists all, take note.

5th Thaw

The next morning everyone with the exception of Dramus and Vykan spends a pleasant day within sight of the rooms of the supposed Succubus and successfully reinforce our cover as harmless traveling bravos. When we return "Party Leader" Dramus chews us out for going within 100 yards of a dangerous demonic mind mage assassin. Big baby.

As punishment we are herded out of the Wood Gate, this time with a retinue of people who seem to anticipating trouble as much as we are. Gerard is wearing the Dukaran disguise this time and is projecting his images as far as he can, to avoid being rocked along with it. He bellow and froths for a while, before we hear a crashing and bashing in the distance and then it's all on. Vykan and Hoo get stuck in but a surprise guest starts pumping more hideously poisoned arrows into us. Quick work from Drovar with a wall protects most of the party, but I end up having to draw fire away from the others and having to pull out arrows from various bits of me on two separate occasions. Needless to say being pain resistant and a Healer make this easier, but no where near fun.

Dramus' spells and Spectral Warriors were just bouncing off Urgolash and Vykan was having a merry time landing blows. Gerard attempt to blind the archer that is pelting ( and pantsing ) us but gets a skewering for his trouble. Hoo fights off a dose of arrow goo and goes a number of rounds with the big guy alongside Vykan, while Drovar lays down the trollskins and drags the twitching Gerard out of the line of fire. A good days work all.

Despite everyones efforts things seem to be going pretty badly but again Urgolash gets bored and beats a bellowy retreat. While I am hunkered down, to avoid the arrows and hopefully still be able pump some healing into the front rank he casually tosses down the biggest Smoking Magma I have 'ever seen, and the rest of the fight vanishes in smoke and flame.

Someone pulls me out before the trollskin runs down, thankfully, and it seems we have all survived. He head back to Dramus' pad to heal our wounds and consider our next move.

We start to discuss various plans, but the conversation seems to get stuck on directing missinformation via the means of getting me, of all people, to chat up the succubus. I'm all for exchanging the fact that the Aim-ite's gave us the information about her whereabouts and her name for some help, but I think Dramus' warning are starting to sound more believable now when he's talking risking about my safety, espicially whiles he's smiling .

The plan is supposed to be that we tell the succubus that the Gabrialites told us ( which is obviously rubbish, as they would just burn the building down if they knew ) and dispatch another urchin message to the Gabrialites. I forget what happens to the Aim followers, but then I don't really care.

While this is being discussed I get a very little information about the information about a character called Rakyrea, who is supposed to be a contemporary of Urgolash, if not an associate, and a very handy ranger and huntsman. He apparently persues his targets, archery or amorously orientated, to the ends of the earth. This could be a our poisioned arrow launcher.

Gerrade and Dramus used double blind illsuions and badly scribed message are used to get a message to the Gabialites, after a few false starts.

Anyhow, after a few drinks back at Dramus' tower, I decide to play along with the visit the demonic mind-mage assassin trollop and give her the low-down on what is happening.

Sadly, things get a little confused and I remember blurting out half-arse Gabrialite story instead. I remembered a few other things as well, but they can wait for my memoirs.

Besides, I've heard Dramus' deviant governess reading these (doing the voices, no less!) to his adopted human daughter. Elves!

6th Thaw - 9th Thaw

Anyway, when I head back the following day to clarify anything I might have omitted the previous night, but it turns out that the Gabrialites have had her arrested and taken to the the town hall for a trial. I try and comfort some of the distraught ladies of the Street of Lanterns but it's quickly apparent that she will be tried and punished on the spot if the Gabrialites make a convincing case. I get to the civic building to find the rest of the party already heckling the proceeding from the gallery. The Rokarian council simply aren't convinced that these Northern freaks are more trustworthy than a upstanding and familiar citizen like Serene. After they are persauded to leave and drop their case, Dramus scolds the Council for having such a shabby building and offers to have it fixed, angling to replace oen of the more paranoid and twitchy memeber of the group. Apparently he'd survived a few of the purges and said he recognised that they we were the ones from the "City of Madmen". It probably us alright.

10th Thaw

Dramus going looking for some help to rebuild the Council Chambers is various low places, and is acutally given a Binder by the Guild and a small swarm of underlings by Seir.

Gerrade and Drover try to convince a group of proselytsing Gabrialites to stop harraunging the crowds with Bardic Voice and challange their "favourite god" Urgolash. They don't seem terribly impressed but promise to look him up. While the god-boxes are in the streets, Dramus tours the public houses spreading the good word about Seir. "Beer, Beer! It rhymes with Seir." is going to be a real hit around here, I can tell.

I ask about at the Street of Lanterns, but it appears that Serene has fled. At least she knows whats goood for her.

12th Thaw

The Binder and the imps start making "improvements". Some of the architectural features include it having an escapable foyer and numerous death traps. It's really sad to see a stereotype fulfilled like this.

In a more startling development, women start being abducted over the city walls during the night, by skeletal fiends. A quick survey determines that they were looking for the 10 most attractive women of various occupations and socal standing, whipped a few folk with firey flails and carried them off north. In the general direction of the temple of Bune, we note disapprovingly. We track the boney foot prints past the end of the "road" and it they eventually lead to the site of a small saurime village. We run into the normal problems with communicating with creatures that think you are a food group, but quickly find that Urgloash is now their headman, and is bellowing at the captives.

We end up negotiation via the medium of a normal lizard and determine he isn't going to give up his prizes just yet and he was probably called here by a Greater Summoner with Call Hero.

A beautiful women at the ceremony may have also been a Succubus. We can't take then and there, so we retreat and leave the women, hoping to return with some of his actual followers and a parcel of invested banishes.

We discuss recent events of interest. Dramus is off his nut, he stills thinks that Urgloash is an illusionist demon disguising themselves as a nobody man-god. He summons a minion of Seir and quizzes it about the Greater Summoner, who styles himself as the Merchant of Demons.

The demon doesn't want to play, but says the that particular Greater Summoner prefers a dryer climate.

Isil Eth joins the party

Issil Eth and a posse of guards joins the party after our plea for tougher guild members to smoke the pesky god. We explain the messy situation to her rising amusement.

Drovar and I canvass for volunteers for women to serve as replacements for the hostages Urgolash has taken. We have rather more success than I'd imagined. The plan is to effect the rescue of the unwilling catpives and to keep Urgolash occupied and tired out. If he isn't as godlike as it's reputed.

Dramus discover the mushrooms that are the secrets of the temple keepers unending stream of useless information. He takes a few and then summons another "helper". Ickigak seems to be a sensible imp, but is trying to get Dramus to summon some Bardic Imps.

Phrases Haann never wants to hear again

"Splinges measure occult ratios" "Hoo's dog is called Sheba"

We take our assortment of trulls from the Temple and load up some beer in the a cartand head out to Urgolashes village. He isn't home and lizards don't interfere as we make the exchange. Urgolash only comes lumbering up, clutching a dead wyvern like a security blanket, about halfway through the process and we managed to explain the process with too much shouting and very little dying.

We return the "non-volunteering" ladies to the city and Dramus takes care of any "accidents" along the way. Five out of the eight women appear to have had "accidents" which goes someway to further reinforcing Urgolashes heroic status.

We dine in the Regency's "attic" courtesy of Isil Eth and enjoy a decently cooked meal for once.

Except for Vychan, who appears to prefer uncooked antimacassar.

13th Thaw

We pick up our banishment investeds and stop by the new Town Hall to prevent the installation of any more deathtraps. It's explained to the twitchy little man that if he can make this building legedarily safe, his next trap-ladden monolith will come as complete surprise.

Isil Eth even promises him a commission.

Outside the wall, Vykan calls up an Eather Elemental and it appears to be able to trap the mangod's footsteps, and indicates he is a lot further North than the Lizardman village.

There appears to be a Succubus with him. We find the women we brough from the temple, in the village and they confirm that a raven-haired warrior-woman arrive, actually had a conversation with Urgolash, and they both left with further explanation. We send the temple "ladies", who are quite distraught blame one another for driving their Mangod ( or Godman, whatever) into the arms of some floozy, back to the town with Isil Ith's soldiers.

We track their trail North all afternoon until we reach a demon blood scorched clearing and try and judge from the Earth Elementals ponderous grasp of relative measurements ( "Can you throw a rock that far?" "Yerr." "And how far is that?" "Pretty far." ) and their kinds antipathy towards magic using races, how far it might be. We give up and sleep.

14th Thaw

Urgolash has been moving through the night, and we press East to the Bone Road to make our passage North a bit faster. We are trying to use the Elmental's sense of direction again, but are getting very suspicious of their intention's and intelligence. More than one reference is made to squashing people to make their favouriate beverage, "People Squash."

Much is made of a place called "The Maze of Spells" which appears to feature pretty prominently on the maps that the Elementals have internally.

After a couple of goes at flight, which the party is not quite set up to do very well, we made a clearing off the bone road and settled into a bone fortress provided by Dramus.

Early in the morning, I spot something moving and ESP tells me that an unpleasant hungry mind is observing us from the trees.

It turned out to be a Greater Undead and nasty fight enuses. I caught a Whitefire just as the proceedings were winding down and apparently that was it. Apparently it was Sceptre or Wight or something. A bit of an anti-climax really, especially after I got killed by a King the first time. At least my Aspect is the same this time.

( I haven't woke up on the Guild slab before. I was barely warm before they handed me the receipt. Lovely. )

To be continued

At this point my memory completely failed as to what happens next. Either those hacks at the Guild Healers messed up something or the point at which I goat- mean, got transformed into a Satyr by a backfiring Imp did the damage.

We did come back though.

Dramatis Personae

imcomplete

Seir - the aggrieved party

the new arrivals - 500 trans-planar refugees incapable of saving themselve from a minor palne devouring city

Details Missing from the Scribe notes

High Preists names - Urgolash: Vargus? Seirs: Cedric?

Name of our Inn and the Posh Inn

Who told us Urgolash was a ManGod or GodMan?